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The Cipher Found 



LORD BACON'S WORK LOCATED IN 
ONE OF THE PLAYS. 



/ 






THE CIPHER PROVED FROM ANOTHER 
vSTANDPOINT. 



J 



BY CHARLES IF. AUGUSTUS. 




CHICAGO: 

Emil Simon & Co., Printers, 393 K. Division Street. 



.As 



&<j 



kiMhk 



vj l_„ 



^JH 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year iSSS, by 

CHARLES W. AUGUSTUS, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

All Rights Reserved. 



S7 1 



f^jwpr 



BEN JONSONS LINES UNDER THE PICTURE OF 
SHAKESPEARE IN THE 1623 EDITION. 

This Figure that thou hete seest put, 
■ It was f of gentle Shakespeare cut; 
Wherein the graver had a strife 
With Nature, to outdo the . 
O could he but have drawn his wit 
As well in brass, as he hath hit 
His face; the Print would then surpass 
All that was ever writ in brass. 
But since he cannot, Reader, look t 
Not at his picture, but his book. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 



CHAPTER I. 

A Glance over the Field. 

A prominent gentleman being interviewed as to the 
Donnelly cipher, said : ' The question whether Bacon was the 
author of the works, or of certain works of Shakespeare, is 
not new, and I have read numerous pamphlets on the sub- 
ject, which have taught me nothing .... It suffices me 
to admire "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "King Eear," etc., and I 
do not seek to know if God exists. The sun shines, and that 
is enough. ' ' Every one is not so easily satisfied. The light of 
the sun is but one of the many wonders of the Divine Author. 
We should always, as Lord Bacon says, "enlarge as far as 
God will permit, the borders of man's dominion." 

Men of an anylitical bent of mind, have found much to 
interest them in the Bacon-Shakesperian controversy, and 
probably without thinking much about doing au act of justice 
to either author, have determined, if possible, to pluck the 
mystery out of the works themselves, by endeavoring to dis- 
cover a cipher, on the clue furnished by various authors. 
Among the first to call attention to this matter was Mrs. Delia 
Bacon in a work which displays the greatest research, and a 
mind capable of fathoming the deepest subjects. In her work, 
"The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded," in a 
preface by Nathaniel Hawthorne, quoting her own words, he 
says, "It was a time when authors, who treated of a scien- 
tific politics and of a scientific ethics internally connected 



6 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

with it, naturally preferred this more philosophic, symbolic 
method of indicating their connection with their writings, 
which would limit the indication to those who could pierce 
within the veil of a philosophic symbolism. It was a time 
when the cipher, in which one could write 'omnia per omnia' 
was in such request, and wheu 'wheel ciphers' and 'doubles' 
were thought not unworthy of philosophic notice. It was a time, 
too, when the phonographic art was cultivated, and put to 
other uses than at present, and when a nom-de-plume was 
required for other purposes than to serve as the refuge of an 
author's modesty, or vanity, or caprice. It was a time when 
puns, and charades, and enigmas, and anagrams, and mono- 
grams, and ciphers, and puzzles, were not good sport and 
child's play merely; when they had need to be close; when they 
had need to be solvable, at least, only to those who should solve 
them. It was a time when all the latent capacities of the 
English language were put in requisition, and it was flashing 
and crackling, through all its lengths and breadths, with puns 
and quips, and conceits, and jokes, and satires, and inlined 
with philosophic secrets that opened down 'into the bottom of 
a tomb' — that opened into the Tower — that opened on the 

scaffold and the block The great secret of the 

Elizabethan age did not lie where any superficial research 
could ever discover it. It was not left withiu the range of 
any accidental disclosure. It did not lie on the surface of 
any Elizabethan document. The most diligent explorers of 
these documents, in two centuries and a quarter, had not found 
it. No faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the 
most recent, and clear sighted and able investigator of the 
Baconian remains. It was buried in the lowest depths of the 
lowest deeps of the deep Elizabethan Art ; that Art, which no 
plummet, till now, has ever sounded. It was locked with its 
utmost reach of traditionary cunning. It was buried in the in- 
most recesses of the esoteric Elizabethan learning. It was tied 
with a knot that had passed the scrutiny and baffled the sword of 
an old, suspicious, dying, military government — a knot 
that none could cut — a knot that must be untied. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 7 

The great secret of the Elizabethan age was inextricably 
reserved by the founders of a new learning, the prophetic 
and more nobly gifted minds of a new and nobler race of 
men, for a research that should test the mind of the 
discoverer, and frame and subordinate it to that so 
sleepless and indomitable purpose of the prophetic aspir- 
ation. It was 'the device' by which they undertook to live again 
in the ages in which their achievements and triumphs were fore- 
cast, and to come forth and rule again, not in one mind, not in 
the few, not in the many, but in all. 'For there is no throne like 
that throne in the thoughts of men, which the ambition of these 
men climbed and compassed.' 

This authoress seemed to regard the works of Shakespeare 
as the united product of a number of the greatest men of the 
time. Without assuming any such view, we may admit that it 
would appear as if a conspiracy existed at the time to familiar- 
ize the "groundlings" with "object-lessons" on the stage by 
which they could see the ease with which regal murders and 
depositions might be accomplished. The play of Richard the 
Second held the boards for over a year, openly countenanced 
by Essex and his friends, and very much to the discomfort of 
Elizabeth, to whom it had been whispered that it was a treason- 
able plot, Richard being merely an impersonation of herself, and 
Bolingbroke of Essex. 

If there was a combination of several authors of the time 
who had in view the laudable object of living again in the minds 
of a more enlightened age, Mrs. Bacon did not fully take into 
consideration the frailty of human nature; there existed jealous- 
ies, bickerings, ill-feeling. At the time of the Crusades, Peter the 
Hermit, inspired with religious fervor set out with a great multi- 
tude with a view of regaining the Holy Dand from the 
possession of infidels. He had entertained the highest hopes 
for the success of the expedition, believing his army actuated by 
the same motives as himself, unfortunately he was doomed to 
disappointment, as all are who rely on the virtues and prudence 
of mankind in general. 

Mr. Donnelly has been, if we understand him correctly, 



8 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

working at a cipher which continues through one or more of the 
Shakesperian plays, a task which Hercules himself might be per- 
mitted to view in dismay. 

Let us now turn our attention to the two authors for whom 
the works commonly attributed to William Shakespeare have 
been claimed, and as we intend to implicate a third party (almost 
invariably introduced in the discussion of this subject), it may be 
well at the same time to take him also into consideration. 
William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Lord 
Bacon was born in 1561 and died in 1626. Benjamin (more fam- 
ilarly known as Ben), Jonson was born about 1574 and died in 
1637. In the year 1623 — or seven years after Shakespeare's death 
— was published by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, ' 'the True and 
Original copies of William Shakespeare's works." Two fellow 
actors of Shakespeare attached their signatures to the prefaces 
(of which there are two,) to this work. One of the prefaces is 
called "The Epistle Dedicatorie, " the other, "To the Great Varie- 
ty of Readers. ' ' We believe with some others that Ben Jonson 
wrote both the prefaces, signed by John Heminges and Henry 
Condell. He was no doubt on good terms with Heminges. In 
"The Masque of Christmas," he makes one of the characters, 
Venus, disguised as an old tire-woman, say of her son Cupid, 
who was supposed to have an aptness for the stage, "Master 
Burbage" (the great actor and part owner with Shakspeare and 
others of the Globe and Blackfriars' theatres) "has been about 
and about with me, and so has old master Heminges too, they 
have need of him." This Masque was presented at Court in 16 16, 
the year Shakspeare died, and long after he had quitted the stage. 
In the preface "To the Great Variety of Readers" occurs the fol 
lowing phrase: "And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit 
on the stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-Pit, to arraigne plays 
daihe, know, these playes have had their triall alreadie, and 
stood out all appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by 
a Decree of Court, then any purchased Letters of commendation." 
Compare the above with a certain portion of Jonson's Introduc- 
tory to "Bartholomew Fair," which reads as follows, viz: — "It is 
also agreed, that every man here exercise his own judgment, and 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 9 

not censure by contagion, or upon trust, from another's voice or 
face, that sit next by him, be he never so first in the commission 
of wit; as also, that he be fixed and settled in his censure that 
what he approves or not approves to-day, he will do the same 
to-morrow; and if to-morrow the next day, and the next week if 
need be: and not to be brought about by any that sits on the 
bench with him, though they indite and arraigne plays dailie." 
Again, in the same preface to Shakespeare we have: "From the 
most able to him that can but spell: There you are numbered. 
We had rather you were weigh 'd. Especially when the fate of all 
books depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone 
but of your purses." In Jonson's Introductory to "The New 
Inn," he says: "To the Reader — If thou beest such, I make 
thee my patron, and dedicate the piece to thee; if not so much, 
would I had been at the charge of thy better literature. Howso- 
ever, if thou canst but spell, and join my sense," etc. Still in the 
same preface to Shakespeare we find: "Then how odd soever 
your brains be, or your wisdoms, make your license the same and 
spare not. Judge your six pen 'orth, your shillings worth, your 
Jive shillings worth at a time, or higher so you rise to the just 
rates, and welcome. " Jonson in the intrductory to "Bartholomew 
Fair," says: "It is further agreed, that every person here have 

his or her free will of censure it shall be lawful for any 

one to judge his six pen'' worth, his twelve pen'' worth, so his 
eighteen-pence, tiuo shillings, half a crown, to the value of his 
place; provided always his place get not above his wit. Then 
again, Jonson in "The Magnetic Lady," chorus end of act II, 
makes Damplay say, "Can anything be out of purpose at a play? 
I see no reason, if I come here and give my eighteen-pence or 
two shillings for my seat, but I should take it out in censure on 
the stage." To while the "Boy" answers, "Your two shillings 
worth is allowed you: but you will take your ten shilling worth, 
your twenty shilling worth," etc. 

In the preface "To the Great Variety of Readers" occurs the 
following tribute to Shakespeare: " Who, as he was a most happy 

imitator of nature was a most gentle expressor of it he 

uttered with that easiness ," etc. In Jonson's "Discoveries" the 



io THE CIPHER FOUND. 

same ideas are there expressed, thus he makes the following re- 
marks concerning Shakespeare saying that he "had an excellent 
phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flow- 
ed with that facility, etc. In the "Epistle Dedicatorie" we have the 
following:" "We cannot go beyond our own powers. Country 
hands reach for the milke, creame, fruites, or what they have: 
and many Nations (we have heard) that had not gummes and 
incense, obtained their requests with a leavened cake." In his 
dedication of 'The Alchemist" to Lady Mary Wroth, Jonson 
says: "In the age of Sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in 
the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and 
zeal of the sacrificers: else what could a handful of gums do in 
the sight of a hecatomb?" It will be observed that we have for 
the most part compared introductory dialogues and epistles with 
the introductory epistles to the works of Shakespeare, and that 
the same ideas are expressed, and frequently the same language 
is used. To those familiar with the literary style of Ben Jonson, 
we think both the introductory epistles signed by Heminges and 
Condell, will be recognized as his work, and this taken in con- 
nection with the lines under the portrait of Shakespeare, in the 
1623 edition, leads us to believe that he assisted Heminges and 
Condell in editing the work, a task for which he was eminently 
qualified. 



CHAPTER II. 

The "Youth" of the Period. 

Lord Bacon was a very- extravagant man, and we understand 
"He started with insufficient means, and acquired a habit of bor- 
rowing, and was never afterwards out of debt."— Ency Brit. Art, 
Bacon; see also Spedding's Life. 

About the year 1590 he became acquainted with Essex, in 
whose employ he afterwards, in connection with his brother, was 
frequently called upon to decipher the private correspondence of 
the Earl. Considerable space in one of his works is given to 
explaining and elucidating ciphers. Occult science and hidden 
subjects came in for a great deal of his consideration, particularly 
evident in his "Wisdom of the Ancients," which impresses one 
greatly with his penetrative sagacity in dealing with the most 
abstruse subjects. In his essay "Of Simulation and Dissimula- 
tion," he says: "There be three degrees of this hiding and veil- 
ing of man's self: the first closeness, reservation, and secrecy, 
when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without 
hold to be taken what he is," etc. 

Lord Bacon was on every side highly connected, and were it 
known that he was a "sale poet" it would have destroyed his 
reputation socially and prosessionally, and cast a stigma on his 
relatives as well. Hartley Coleridge correctly stated the situa- 
'tion when he said: "The dramatist, the genius, was admired, but 
his quality was not respected." There would have been little 
hope for him to hold such eminent positions as member of Parli- 
ment, attorney-general, and confidential adviser to King James, 
were it known that he dabbled in dramatic poetry. Playwrights 
and actors in that bigoted age were not looked upon with the 
same degree of respect they are at the present time; in fact it 
must be confessed that many of the prominent ones were disso- 
lute, drunken brawlers, guilty of the most outrageous crimes 
against decency and morality, yet with intellects, whose lustre 



T2 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

was destined to dazzle succeeding ages. Marlowe, the brilliant, 
to whom Shakespeare was indebted for introducing his melodi- 
ous blank verse on the dramatic stage, killed at the early age of 
twenty-nine in a miserable resort. Greene with his dying notes 
imploring his brother dramatists to forsake their evil ways. 
Peele's death was fully as wretched as that of Greene. Rare old 
Ben Jonson, with his gigantic intellect, a perfect Colossus, revil- 
ing his more successful compeers in a manner which seems 
scarcely endurable in this more cultured century. In the Poetaster 
he admits indirectly that his writing is mere railing. Polyposus 
says, in the author's lodgings: "O but they lay particular impu- 
tations." Author, "As what?" Pol. "That all your writing is 
mere railing." Horace was his great model. His Masques 
enacted principally at Court, are however written in an entirely 
different vein, and display a delicacy of taste and airy graceful- 
ness entirely foreign to his longer compositions. Beaumont and 
Fletcher decocting nauseating plots, yet now and then handing 
the reader a boquet of the rarest fragrance. Among this galaxy 
of satellites, Shakespeare rises like a morning star. "Hyperion 
to a Satyr. ' ' We must not lose sight of the fact that Shakespeare 
was a poet of extraordinary merit. The poems "Venus and 
Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" both dedicated to the Earl 
of Southampton — the former of which he calls the "first heir of 
his invention," was originally printed in 1593. These poems 
are fully equal if not superior to any of the time, and were decid- 
edly popular in their day. They are very much like the address- 
es to the Earl, vigorous, straightforward, manly, and contain 
only a few classical allusions of the most commonplace order. 
In the "Rape" he refers to old Priam and Hecuba, afterwards 
mentioned at greater length in "Hamlet." They prove beyond 
cavil that they are not the product of a University pen of that 
period, else we may be sure there would have been more refer- 
ence to "that writer Metamorphosis," and a dragging in of every 
deity since Saturn's time. 

Shakspeare was married on the 28th day of November 1582, 
and his daughter, Anna, was born in 1583, a little prior to the 
time considered in keeping with perfect propriety. In 1585 the 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 13 

twins Hamnet and Judith were bom. The period of youth 
and romance was past. Wife and family now claimed the atten- 
tion of this wonderful genius. 

Little is known of Shakespeare up to this time. It is said 
that he was, in his youth, implicated in a deer-stealing scrape — 
a crime about which Mr.Heuty ("The Antiquary, " Aug. '81) says: 
"I speak from testimony on the spot, in saying it was a very 
slender affair?" 

He may have been wild, yet it is believed that his character 
will compare favorably with that of any of his contemporaries, 
and especially as he advanced in years, the gentleness of his dis- 
position became proverbial. It was an age of excesses. Ben 
Jonson killed an actor named Gabriel in a duel. Elizabeth 
patronized bull and bear-baiting, and kept performing apes to 
amuse her during leisure hours. Oaths were frequently inter- 
spersed in her conversation. In front of the shops were the 
apprentices who shouted the stereotyped phrase, "What d'ye 
lack' ' by which title they were designated. At the cry of ' 'clubs' ' 
they would rush forth to beat any one who had been so unfor- 
tunate as to incur their displeasure. On Shrove-Tuesday, "the 
fatal day for doors to be broken open," says Dekker — which 
was a holiday for the apprentices, they became very riotous, 
and would attempt to demolish houses of bad repute. A dis- 
reputable band called "Roarers" infested the streets at night. 
Even at a later date it was dangerous to walk abroad after 
evening had closed in. Lord Macauley says: "For till the last 
year of Charles the Second, most of the streets were left in pro- 
found darkness; thieves and robbers plied their trade with im- 
punity: yet they were hardly so terrible to peaceful citizens as 
another class of ruffians. It was a favorite amusement for dis- 
solute young gentlemen to swagger at night about town, break- 
ing windows, upsetting sedans, beating quiet men, and offering 

rude caresses to pretty women There was an 

act of Common Council which provided that more than a 
thousand watchmen should be constantly on the alert in the 
city from sunset to sunrise, and that every inhabitant should 
take his turn of duty. But this act was negligently executed. 



14 THE CIPHER FOUND. • 

Few of those who were summoned left their homes; and those 
few generally found it more agreeable to tipple in ale houses 
than to pace the streets." Beaumont and Fletcher no doubt 
furnish us with a true picture of their time in "Philaster." 
One of the characters, a captain, having a foreign prince in 
charge, shouts to his companions: — 

Come on my brave myrmidons, let us fall on ! 

Ivet our caps swarm my boys, and your nimble tongues 

Forget your mother gibberish of "What do you lack," 

And set your mouths up, children, till your palates 

Fall frighted, half a fathom past the cure 

Of bay salt and gross pepper. And then cry 

Philaster! Brave Philaster! Let Philaster 

Be deeper in request, my ding dougs, 

My pairs of deep indentures, king's of clubs, 

Than your cold water camlets, etc. 

Then to the prince who has shown signs of impatience at 
their rude treatment: 

Ivet him loose, my spirits! 
Make us a round ring with your bills, my Hectors, 
And let us see what this trim man dares do. 
Now, sir, have at you! Here I lie, 

And with this swashing blow (do you see, sweet prince ?) 
I could hock your grace, and hang you up cross-legg'd, 
Like a hare at a poulter's, and do this with this wiper. 

The "swashing blow" was quite famed at the time for we 
find in "Romeo and Juliet" that Sampson bids Gregory in their 
quarrel with the Montagues to remember his "swashing blow." 



CHAPTER III. 
William Shakespeare— Stage— Adors and Authors. 

It is supposed that Shakespeare departed for London from 
his native villiage, Stratford, ill the latter part of the year 1586. 
4s Malone has observed "He had a natural and easy access to 
the theatre, without any introduction from either Hathwaye, 
the poet, who was perhaps his wife's kinsman, or Thos. Greene, 
the actor, who may have been his countryman." 

That a young man of such an ardent, romantic tempera- 
ment should also display such sound practical business ability 
is surprising. He will be readily recognized in the metropolis 
at this period as a man of commanding presence, gentle man- 
ners, and as we understand that he afterwards played the ghost 
in Hamlet (his principal character) we may assume that he 
possessed a rich, deep voice. Among his sonnets (the 37th and 
89th) he seems to intimate that he was like Lord Byron afflicted 
with lameness — 

"As a decrepit father takes delight 

To see his active child do deeds of youth, 

So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite," etc. 

Among his contemporaries he was, for seme reason— either 
through this defect, or some supposed irregularity in the con- 
struction of his dramas— alluded to as the "Deformed." Con- 
sidering this and with it Greene's charge of plagiarism we are 
not surprised to find the watchman in "Much Ado About Noth- 
ing," saying— "I know that Deformed; a' has been a vile thief 
this seven year: a' goes up and down like a gentleman. I rem- 
ember" his name. As to the word "beautified" which Greene 
uses in the same charge, it would appear that Shakespeare 
could never bear the sound of it for he makes Polonius say in 
Hamlet, "That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; "beautified" is a 



16 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

vile phrase;" We desire also to call the reader's attention to a 
speech by Hamlet after the play scene before the king is con- 
cluded. We believe this has escaped all commentators: 

"Ha»ilet. Let the striken deer go weep, 
The heart ungalled play; 
For some must watch while some must sleep: 
Thus runs the world away. — 

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of 
my fortunes turn Turk with me) with two Provincial roses 6n 
my raised shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? 

Horatio. Half a share. 
Hamlet. A whole one, I, 

For thou dost know, O! Damon dear! 

This realm dismantled was 

Of Jove himself ; and now reigns here 

A very, very peacock. ' ' 

We have italicized the words we wish to call the reader's 
attention to. "Fortunes" and "roses" refer to theatres so 
named. After reading Greene's charge the "forest of feathers" 
and "peacock" phrases become clear to us. 

Three years after reaching London (in 1589) we find him 
sharer in the Blackfriars' theatre, from which time forward his 
prosperity was such that he succeeded in amassing a very hand- 
some fortune. In the first stages of his career it is very likely 
that he acted quite regularly, and we have it from Aubrey that 
he did "act exceedingly well," but afterwards his duties as 
author, and with it presumably the duties of director of amuse- 
ments took up a great deal of his time, and made it necessary 
for him to discontinue acting almost entirely. Moveable scenery 
was not known till long after Shakespeare's time, the actors 
either hanging up a tag, as in Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy where 
the little super-valiant Hieronimo says: 

"Well done, Balthasar, hang up the title: 
Our scene is Rhodes — 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 17 

or announcing any suggestions pertinent to the play something 
like Moonshine in the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe, thus — 
"Moonshine. All that I have to say is, to tell you, that the 
lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn T bush, 
my thorn-bush, and this dog, my dog." Shakespeare here 
with his true appreciation of humor, burlesqued the 
situation in his inimitable manner. However if it was 
intended as a satire it is greatly exaggerated. Large sums 
of money were spent in producing some of the 
Masques and Pageants, and it would be safe to infer that the 
public theatres would endeavor to make their effects as realistic 
as possible. We know that costly garments were worn on the 
stage, and the decorations were far from tawdry. Judging from 
the length of the plays, and the time it took to exhibit them, 
there could have been but very short periods of intermission: the 
chorus would occasionally be introduced, as in King Henry the 
Fifth (5th act), to waft you over the seas. The "groundlings' ' 
were obliged to remain standing during the entire performance, 
exposed to wind and weather. Prior to the building of regular 
theatres for dramatic entertainments, the representations were 
frequently given in inn-yards. The Globe theatre was pattern- 
ed after one. of these. 

In some of the Masques there is a suggestion of paucity in 
properties, which, as in other delinquencies of the period is 
amply atoned for in the sprightliness and wit of the dialogue. 
In "The Masque of Christmas," by Ben Jonson, the principal 
characters of which are "Christmas" and his ten sons and 
daughters is the following: 

Christmas. Are you ready, boys ! Strike up, nothing will 
drown this noise but a drum: a' peace yet ! I have not 
done. 

{They sing.) Now their intent is above to present. 

Carol, (breaking into the song.) Why, here be half of the 
properties forgotten, father. 

Offering. Post and Pair wants his pur-chops and his pur- 
dogs. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 

Carol. Have you ne'er a sou at the grooui porter's, to beg 
or borrow a pair of cards quickly? 

Gambol. It shall not need, here's your son Cheater with 
out, has cards in his pocket. 

Offer. Ods so ! speak to the guards to let him in, under 

the name of a property. 
Gambol. And here's New Year's gift has an orange and 

rosemary, but not a clove to stick in't. 

New Year. Why let one go to the spicery. 
Christ. Fy, fy, fy, it's naught, its naught boys ! 



Carol. And Mumming has not his vizard neither. 

Chris. No matter ! his own face shall serve for a punish- 
ment, and tis bad enough; has Wassel her bowl, and 
Minced-pie her spoons? 

Offer. Ay, ay: but Misrule doth not like his suit: he says 
the players have lent him one too little, on purpose to dis- 
grace him. 

Chris. L,et him hold his peace, and his disgrace will be 
the less: What ! shall we proclaim where we were fur- 
liish'd? Mum ! mum ! A' peace ! be ready, good boys." 

After some more songs, dialogue and dance, Christmas 
commends them saying: "Well done, boys, my fine boys," 
etc., and the Epilogue ends the Masque. 

Greene openly charges Shakespeare with being "an upstart 
crow beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart 
wrapped in a player's hide (see third part cf Henry VI, act I sc. 
4. "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide") supposes he is 
as well able to bombast our blank-verse, as the best of you: and, 
being an absolute Johannes Facial 'u m, is in his own conceit, the 
only Shake-scene in a country. Oh, that I might en- 
treat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses, 
and let these ofies, (sic) imitate your past excellence," etc. It 
will be observed by the above that Shakespeare was already an 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 19 

absolute Johannes Facfotum in the year 1592, when Greene died. 
Jonson has in his Epigrams (No. 56, Gifford) the following: 

ON POET APE.* 

Poor Poet-ape, that would be thought our chief, 

Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit, 

From brokage is become so bold a thief, 

As we the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it. 

At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean, 

Buy the reversion of old plays; now grown 

To a little wealth, and credit in the scene, 

He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own: 

And told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes 

The sluggish, gaping auditor devours; 

He marks not whose 'twas first: and aftertimes 

May judge it to be his, as well as ours. 

Fool ! as if half-eyes will not know a fleece 

From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece? 



*The term ape or poet-ape seems to be resented by Shakes- 
peare in "Much Ado about Nothing" (the same play that men- 
tions "Deformed"). We find the following dialogue in act V, 
sc. 1. 

Don Pedro. What a pretty thing man is, when he goes in 
his doublet and hose, and leaves off his wit ! 

Claudio. He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape 
a doctor to such a man. 

In Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels" a character answering to 
Shakespeare in many particulars is thus described: "Amorphus, 
a traveler, one so made out of the mixture of forms, that him- 
self is truly deformed." 

As to the word "deformed" we find it used in a very 
peculiar manner by Shakespeare in the opening of his 
career. In the dedication of "Venus and Adonis" occurs: 
"But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed," 
etc. It is not likely that the witty critics and finical connois- 
seurs of words then so numerous would permit an unusual ex- 
pression like this to pass unnoticed. Kyd's "Go by, Hieron- 
imo," and "What outcries pluck me from my naked bed" 
afforded considerable merriment to the "youth" of the period. 
The word afterwards became quite common. 



20 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

Of course it can not be said for a certainty that the 
above applies to Shakespeare, but there is pretty strong evi- 
dence to support it. Shakespeare's company was at the time 
"traveling," or a "traveling motion" as Jonson had previously 
described it, a restriction having been placed on the dramatic 
performances at the Globe and Fortune. The Globe at the time 
was given over to the performances of children. We find men- 
tion made in "Hamlet" to the state of affairs at this period, in 
the following dialogue regarding the tragedians of the city — 

"Hamlet. How chances it they travel? their residence, 
both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. 

Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the 
late innovation. 

Hamlet. Do they hold the same estimation they did when 
I was in the city? Are they so followed ? 

Ros. No indeed, they are not. 

Hamlet. How comes it, do they grow rusty ? 

Ros. Nay their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but 
there is, sir, an eyry of children, little eyases, that cry 
out on the top of the question, and are most tyrannically 
clapp'd for't : these are now the fashion; and so berattle 
the common stages, (so they call them) that many wear- 
ing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come 
hither." 

The plots of Shakespeare's plays are for the most part bor- 
rowed; a great many of them having been traced to their orig- 
inal sources. Everything, however, that he touched with 
his pen he embellished, showing how much a thing can be 
improved by genius. Old plays w ere revamped, amended, re- 
constructed — losing almost every trace of their original identity — 
and hurried forward to be produced on the stage for an eager and 
insatiable public. Very frequently the players were obliged to 
resurrect some old fossil of a play, around which the moss had 
grown, as we find by allusion in some of the prologues. In 



THE CIPHER FOUND. ±1 

"The Return from Parnassus" Momus says— "What is here pre- 
sented is an old musty show, that hath lain this twelvemonth in 
the bottom of a coal-house amongst brooms and old shoes; an 
invention that we are ashamed of, and therefore we have prom- 
ised the copies to the chandler to wrap his candles in." This 
play is of the utmost importance at the present time, inasmuch 
as the different dramatists are mentioned, and their respective 
merits and demerits challenged. Judicio says of Christopher 
Marlowe — 

Marlowe was happy in his buskin'd muse; 

Alas! Unhappy in his life and end: 

Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell 

Wit lent from heav'n but vices sent from hell. 

Ingenioso adds: 

Our theatre hath lost, Pluto hath got, 
A tragic penman for a dreary plot. 

Judicio says of Ben Jonson — "The wittiest fellow of a brick- 
layer in England." To which 

Ingenioso adds: "A mere empiric, one that gets what he hsth 
by observation, and makes nature privy to what he 
indites; so slow an inventor, that he were better betake 
himself to bricklaying; a bold . . . . , as confident 
now in making a book, as he was in times past in 
laying a brick." William Shakespeare is then called up 
for criticism. 

Judicio says of him — 

Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape, 
His sweeter verse contains heart robbing life, 
Could but a graver subject him content, 
With love's foolish (lazy) languishment. 

It was Shakespeare's company which enacted this play, 
which was printed in 1606, and acted a few years prior 
to this date. Considering the rivalry and jealousy which 
existed at the time between rival managers and actors, 
we must not be surprised t to find them a little severe on 



22 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

Ben Jonson, although it is a tolerable criticism. This play intro- 
duces two of the most popular actors of the day — one in the line 
of tragedy, the other a comedian, and particularly famed for 
his dancing, Burbage and Kemp — in propria persona on the 
stage. Kemp says, and the truth of his remark is obvious: "Few 
of the University pens play well; they smell too much of that 
writer Ovid and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much 
of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why here's our fellow Shakespeare 
puts them all down— ay, and Ben Jonson too. O, that Ben Jon- 
son is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace (in the Poetaster) 
giving the poets a pill; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given 
him purge that made him bewray his credit."* Burbage adds, 
"It's a shrewd fellow." 

Kemp has this to say for himself and Burbage. — "He is not 
counted a gentleman that knows not Dick Burbage and Will 
Kemp. There's not a country wench that can dance Sellenger's 
round, but can talk of Dick Burbage and Will Kemp." Philo- 
musis acceeds to this saying, "Indeed, Master Kemp, you are 
very famous," etc. Burbage afterward requests Philomusis to 
recite a little of the part of Richard the Third, saying : "I like 
your face, and the proportion of your body for Richard the 
Third." Philomusis recites the two first lines of the tragedy. 
Burbage had this remarkable inscription placed on his monu- 
ment, "Exit Burbage." 



•What the purge consisted of it would of course be impossi- 
ble at this late day to determine. There is a tradition that the 
son of Sir Walter Raleigh perceiving Ben Jonsoii, who was his 
tutor, to be one day extremely in liquor, produced means to have 
him squeezed into a large buck-basket, and thrown into a river; 
and that Ben Jonson was iritated that the incident was intro- 
duced by Shakespeare into the "Merry Wives of Windsor." (Foot 
note to Pope's Preface to the Works of Shakespeare.) 



CHAPTER IV. 

Shakespeare. 

One may be inclined to think, perhaps unjustly, that as 
Shakespeare advanced towards ( an independent fortune, he be- 
came more interested in the profits which might accrue from his 
plays, than for any posthumous fame he might derive from them. 

"Shakespeare (whom you and ev'ry Play-house bill 

Style the Divine, the Matchless, what you will, ) 

For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, 

And grow immortal in his own despite." Pope. 

Some surprise has been expressed because an edition 
of the works was not published during the lifetime of the author 
and also that the plays were not mentioned in his will. We 
think this may be explained. The plays became the property 
of the theatres to which Shakespeare was attached, and the man- 
agers to prevent them from getting too common were backward 
about permitting any of them being printed. The numerous 
counterfeit plays afloat at the time would seem to attest to this 
fact, also the statement above the signatures of Heminges and 
Condell in which it is said — "It had been a thing, we confess, 
worthy to have been wished, that the author himself had lived 
to have set forth, and overseen his own writings; but since it 
hath been ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from 
that right we pray you do not envy his friends the office of 
their care, and paine, to have collected and publish'd them; and 
so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd 
with divers stolen, and surreptitious copies, maim'd, and deformed 
by the frauds and stealths of injurious imposters, that exposed 
them: even those, are now offered to your view cur'd, and per- 
fect of their limbs; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as 
he conceived them." 

It would appear that Shakespeare had not taken any pains 
l o prevent surreptitious copies being printed, perhaps because he 



24 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

had laid himself under so many obligations in producing them, 
he did not feel that he could consistently call them his own crea- 
tions. To a certain extent Shakespeare's friends were dressing 
him in "borrowed robes," to what extent it would of course be 
impossible to determine. It may be that he intended to publish 
what he regarded as his legitimate offspring, but being taken 
suddenly ill he was obliged to entrust that task to his good 
friends, Heminges and Coudell — both of whom are mentioned in 
his will — and whose connection with the theatres rendered them 
the more fit to perform the task. It is as we have remarked very 
likely that they called upon Ben Johnson to assist them in the 
work. Lord Bacon, it is said, availed himself of Jonson's ser- 
vices in translating some of his works into the Latin tongue. 
Heminges and Condell in their edition rejected a number of 
plays which, at the time, were printed with Shakespeare named 
as the author, and no doubt published several which are only in 
part Iris work: this is almost unanimously admitted by Shake- 
sperian scholars. Appearances would indicate that in a number 
of cases the prompter's books were used in producing this edition. 
We frequently observe in the 1623 folio, that instead of the char- 
acter in the play, the man who performed the part is mentioned. 
Thus we find reference made to Cowley, Kemp, Sinklo, Nick, 
Jack Wilson, etc. It has been thought by some that there are 
still remaining speeches which were foisted in by the players, 
and that Shakespeare's fear least the clowns might speak more 
than was set down for them has been realized. Pope in the pre- 
face to his edition, says: "Sometimes the scenes are shuffled 
backward and forward ; a thing which could no otherwise hap- 
pen, but by their being taken from seperate and piece-meal 
written parts." Taking these things into consideration it would 
appear useless to undertake the task of finding a cipher of any 
great length. 

Mr. Jno. Addington Symonds pays the following tribute to 
Shakespeare's genius — "In order to illustrate the single-hearted 
sincerity of Shakespeare as an artist it is only needful to observe 
the exclusion of religious comment, of marked political intention, 
of deliberate moralizing from works so full of opportunities for 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 25 

their display, and in an age when the very foundations of 
opinion had been stirred." We may add also, that he displayed 
considerable tact, as any marked reference to religious or politi- 
cal topics would be apt to bring down the wrath of "the 
verie long-earde familie, the brethren of assize." The transcript 
of a letter from H. S. (the initials of the Earl of Southampton, 
to whom the two poems of Shakespeare were dedicated) was 
found among the papers of Lord Ellesmere. A portion of this 
transcript reads: "The bearers are two of the chiefe of the com- 
panie; one of them by name Richard Burbidge, who humbly 
sueth for your Lordship's kinde helpe, that he is a man famous 
as our English Roscius, one who fitteth the action to the word, 
and the word to the action most admirably. By the exercise of 
his qualitye, industry, and good behaviour, he hath become pos- 
sessed of the Blacke Fryers play-house, which hath bene imploy- 
ed for playes sithence it was builded by his Father, now nere 50 
yeres agone. The other is a man no whitt lesse deserving favor, 
and my especiall friende, till of late an actor of good account in 
the companie, now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of 
our best English playes, which as your Lordship knoweth, were 
most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth, when the com- 
panie was called upon to performe before her Majestie at court at 
Christmas and Shrovetide. His most gracious majesty King 
James alsoe, since his coming to the crowne, hath extended his 
royal favor to the companie in divers waies and at sundry tymes. 

This other hath to name William Shakespeare 

Their trust and sute nowe is not to bee molested in their way of 
life, whereby they maintaine themselves and their wives and 
families, (being both married and of good reputation) as well as 
the widowes and orphanes of their dead fellowes :" 

It speaks greatly to the credit of the proprietors of the 
theatres that they always provided for the widows and orphans 
of their dead fellows. This, however, is characteristic of the 
generosity and whole-souledness of the dramatic fraternity. At 
one time negotiations were pending for the purchase of the 
Blackfriars' theatre, and we find in a paper which has been 
recovered that there were twenty shares, of which Shakespeare 



26 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

owned four, Burbarge four, Laz Fletcher three shares, Heminges 
and Condell each two shares, Taylor and Lowing each one share 
and one-half, and four other players one-half share each. Rich- 
ard Burbage (whose father had built the theatre) owned the 
property, valued at iooo/. and Shakespeare owned the ward- 
robe and properties valued at 500/. The document closes with 
the following noteworthy statement — "the hired men of the 
Companie demand some recompense for their great losse, and 
the Widowes and Orphanes of Players, who are paide by the 
Sharers at divers rates and proportions, so as in the whole it will 
cost the Lo. Mayor and the Citizens at least 7000/." 

Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek, says Ben Jon- 
son, for which the general reader has much cause to be thankful. 
A great many of the dramatists of the period, proud of their clas- 
sical attainments, strewed Latin and other foreign quotations 
very liberally throughout their works. * 

It is difficult for the learned man to deny himself the pleas- 
ure of parading his "hard-earned wisdom." 

We have no means of knowing whether Shakespeare was 
proficient in the polite languages or not. The romances of Spain, 
Italy and France were sources to which the dramatists of the day 
frequently resorted for their plots, and as Mr. Symonds so eleg- 
antly expresses it. "The heterogenous booty of their raids, the 
ore and dross of their discovery, passed through a furnace in their 

brains, took form from their invention Men 

and women rose beneath their wand of art, from dusty stores of 
erudition, from mists of faery land and fiction." 



* This defect in his education naturally made the others 
look upon him as an arrogant upstart, a man who did not have 
Homer, Virgil and Horace at his tongue's end, and as he suc- 
ceeded in exploding a number of their pet theories, they no 
doubt regarded him as a presumptous dramatic revolutionist. 



CHAPTER V. 
Ben Jonson. 

A great deal of Jonson's time is taken up in defending the 
merits of his own, and assailing the work produced by others. 
Jonson with his peculiar ideas borrowed from ancient authors, 
demanded a strict regard for the unities of time and place— rules 
which Shakespeare and many others persisted in ignoring. 
For this and other supposed delinquencies Jonson lashed them 
unmercifully, Shakespeare apparently remaining quiet, yet deal- 
ing some sledge-hammer blows hi such a manner, however, as not 
to destroy the character he was printiug. The most intense 
rivalry existed at the time among authors and actors. Jonson 
appears to have sailed into everybody. He beat Marston and 
took his pistol from him, and the same year they were the best 
of friends. Jonson, Chapman and Marston were sent to prison 
for writing "Eastward Hoe," or rather Jouson admitted that he 
had been a partner in the work and gave himself up voluntarily. 
It appears that while in prison he made a promise to keep the 
peace. Dekker said afterwards, "I could make thine ears burn 
now by dropping into them all those hot oaths to which thyself 
gave voluntary fire (when thou wast the man in the moon), that 
thou wouldst not squib out any new saltpetre jests," etc. In 
"Cynthia's Revels" and the "Poetaster," Jonson satirized Dek- 
ker, Marston, Shakespeare and others. In "Patient Grissell" 
Dekker introduces Jonson as Emulo, the lath, lime and hair 
man. Dekker said of him also: ' 'This dastard wit struck at men 
in comers, and wrapped up the vices of his best friends in rid- 
dles" (Vide North Brit. Review, July 1870. "Ben Jonson's Quar- 
rel with Shakespeare)." Jonson's cruel taunts, no doubt, had a 
restraining influence on the dramatists, and kept their "pam- 
pered jades" from kicking over the traces too freely. 

Gifford in endeavoring to defend Jonson from the imputa- 
tions made against him by Malone and others that Jon- 



28 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

son "persecuted Shakespeare during his life with unceasing mal- 
evolence," says, that for the long period of ten years from 
the 'death' of Shakespeare, and the 'rise' of Chapman, Jouson 
did not write one line for the stage ! But this surprise will be 
converted into scorn and indignation against his base calumina- 
tors when he further hears that during the same period, in which 
he is accused of such active malevolence against both, the only 
memorials to be found are, ist, the pleasing lines under the 
print of Shakespeare, and the generous burst of affection on his 
death; and the viva voce declaration to Drummond that "he 
loved Chapman." As to the pleasing lines under Shakespeare 
we will deal with them later, only remarking that it seem'd as 
if Dekker knew whereof he was speaking, and that Jonson could 
love and hate with the same breath. When in his better moods 
he no doubt tried to do Shakespeare's genius justice, but his 
prejudices overcame his judgment and he fell. Jonson was by 
nature daring, naturally envious, and rather obscene even for 
that period. In his "Discoveries" he has this to say of Shakes- 
peare: "I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an 
honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he 
penned) he never blotted a line. My answer hath been "Would 
he had blotted a thousand." Which they thought a malevolent 
speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, 
who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, where- 
in he faulted ; and to justify mine own candour : for I loved 
the man and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as 
much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free 
nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle 
expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that some- 
times it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus 
erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own 
power, would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell 
into those things, could not escape laughter: as when he said in 
the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost 
me wrong." "He replied, 'Caesar did never wrong but with just 
cause,' and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed 
his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 29 

praised than to be pardoned." This is the language of a man 
endeavoring to do justice to his fellow man, yet envy is plainly 
discernible throughout the entire article. It would be hard for 
Shakespeare to impose some one else's work on a critic of this 
character and shrewdness. Jonson had every means of knowing 
Shakespeare thoroughly. A page or two farther along Jonson 
speaks of Lord Bacon as follows: "I have ever observed it to 
have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs 
of the state, to take care of the commonwealth of learning. 
For schools, they are the seminaries of state; and nothing is 
worthier the study of a statesman, than that part of the republic 
which we call the advancement of letters. Witness the case of 
Julius Caesar, who, in the heat of the civil war, writ his books of 
analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late Lord 
St. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum: which though by 
the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of 
nominals, it is not penetrated, nor understood, it really openeth 
all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book, 

Qui long urn noto scriptori proroget aevuni. 

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by 
his place, or honors; but I have and do reverence him, for the 
greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to 
me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men and most worthy 
of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I 
ever prayed that God would give him strength ; for greatness 
he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or sylla- 
ble for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, 
but rather help to make it manifest." It was necessary to copy 
this testimony of a contemporary, so that we could always keep 
clearly in mind the distinction between the two men, as there 
seems to be an endeavor at this late day to blend their works 
into one. 

Yet all gold is not that doth golden seeme, 

Ne all good knights that shake well speare and shield. 

Spencer. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Ben J on son's, Works. 

M. Taine in his "History of English Literature" says: 
"What is your first remark on turning over the great, stiff leaves 
of a folio, the yellow sheets of a manuscript, — a poem, a code of 
laws, a declaration of faith ? This, you say, was not created 
alone. It is but a mould, like a fossil shell, an imprint, like one 
of those shapes embossed in stone by an animal which lived and 
perished. Under the shell there was an animal, and behind the 
document there was a man. Why do you study the shell, ex- 
cept to represent to yourself the animal? So you study the 
document in order to know the man." (Introd. Trans. Van- 
L,aun.) 

Where an author deals in localisms and the commonplace, 
we are naturally enabled to glean more reliable information from 
him concerning his personal character and surroundings, than in 
one who almost invariably removes his plots from the immedi- 
ate sphere in which he exists A man to become a thorough 
artist must be able to control his feelings. This Ben Jonson was 
incapable of doing. He was exasperated at the inappreciation 
entertained for his plays, as compared with those especially of 
Shakespeare his most formidable rival. Jonson continually be- 
trays his feelings, Shakespeare never does obviously in his plays: 
it is only in the Sonnets that we occasionally get a glimpse of 
the author, and even here he does not become familiar. Shake- 
speare was aware of the fact that that which is familiar is always 
more or less contemptible; it was one of Jonson' s weaknesses to 
indulge himself with the familiar so as to give vent to his feel- 
ings. He is almost always self-conscious. In the Masques 
occasionally he loses this self-consciousness, and then he is 
delightful, an entirely different character. As he advanced in 
years his disposition became more mellow, his judgment more 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 31 

judicious. He felt that he had a task to perform, to correct the 
follies and errors of the age in which he lived, and he 
took a club larger than the staff of Polyphemus, and lay 
about him with a vigor that was at once amusing and ridicu- 
lous. His assaults were productive of some good, although he 
spent much of his force in the vehemence of his attacks. Be- 
ing more of a lover of good in others than a very good man him- 
self, he set about like a mad bull attacking everything not in 
keeping with his own standard of what was right or wrong in 
plays as well as in conduct. So far as Shakespeare was con- 
cerned he was entirely beyond the reach of his ferocious attacks, 
secure in the possession of his greater genius, successful in his 
undertakings, beloved and respected for his gentle and manly 
nature; he might camly look down on the perspiring Ben and 
exclaim with his own Macbeth — 

"Thou losest labor. 

As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air 

With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed: 

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests. ' ' — 

Being but a mortal, Shakespeare was not entirely free from 
the vices of his time, however we are led to believe that he was 
much cleaner morally than most of his compeers. No man has 
treated the female character with more delicacy and tenderness. 

In Jonson's Ode to himself after the failure of his play 
"The New Inn," he says: 

"Come leave the loathed stage, 

And the more loathsome age; 
Where pride and impudence, in fiction knit, 

Usurp the chair of wit ! 
Indicting and arraigning every day, 
Something they call a play. 

Let their fastidious, vain 
Commission of the brain 
Run on and rage, sweat, censure and condemn; 

They were not made for thee, less thou for th-in. 



32 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

No doubt some mouldy tale, 

Like Pericles, and stale 
As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as his fish — 

Scraps out of every dish 
Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub, 

May keep up the Play-club: 
There, sweepings do as well 

As the best-order' d meal; 
For who the relish of these guests will fit; 
Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit." 

Above are two verses of the six which compose the entire 
ode. There was an answer sent to the above by one Owen Pelt- 
ham, in part as follows: 

"Come leave this saucy way 

Of baiting those that pay 
Dear for the sight of your declining wit: 

'Tis known it is not fit, 
That a sale-poet, just contempt once thrown, 

Should cry up thus his own. 

I wonder by what dower, 

Or patent you had power 
From all to rape a judgment. Left suffice, 
Had you been modest, you'd been granted wise. 

'Tis known you can do well, 

And that you do excel, 
As a Translator: But when things require 

A genius, and fire, 
Not kindled heretofore by other pains; 

As oft you've wanted brains 

And art to strike the white : 
Yet if men vouch not things apocryphal 
You bellow, rave, and spatter round your gall." 

Jug, Pierce, Peck, Fly, and all {characters in the play) 
Your jests so nominal, 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 33 

Are things as far beneath an able brain, 

As they do throw a stain 
Through all th' unlikely plot, and do displease 

As deep as Pericles, 
Where, yet, there is not laid 

Before a chambermaid 
Discourse so weigh'd as might have served of old 

For schools, when they of love and valor told. ' ' 

The above would seem to indicate that the "much-admired, 
play of Pericles was not so greatly admired after all. Compe- 
tent judges claim that it is a colaboration, the greater part being 
the work of one or more inferior dramatists. 

Jonson's contempt for superficial scholars is well illustrated 
in this play. 

Lord L. Is he a scholar? 

Host. Nothing less; 

But colors for it as you see; wears black, 
And speaks a little tainted, fly-blown L,atin, 
After the school. 

Lord B. Of Stratford o' the Bow: 

For Iyillie's L,atin is to him unknown. 

Of course it would be impossible to do full credit to Ben 
Jonson's ability in a short work like the present. We cannot 
however deny ourselves the pleasure of a short quotation from 
the same play. Some new guests arriving at the inn Fly 
announces one of them as — 

"News of a newer lady, 

A finer, fresher, braver, bonnier beauty, 

A very bona-roba, and a bouncer, 

In yellow, glistering, golden satin." 

In one place Jonson mention's something about "Marlowe's 
mighty line," yet he seems to have a contempt for the bombas- 
tic style of that writer. In his "Discoveries" he says: "The 



34 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

true artificer will not run away from nature, as if he were afraid 
of her; or depart from life, and the language of truth; but 
speaks to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language 
differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all human- 
ity, with the Tamerlanes, and Tamer- chams of the late age, 
which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting, and furi- 
ous vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers." 

Shakespeare was most likely included in this category also, 
among the Tamer-chams probably. In the introduction to 
"Bartholomew-Fair" he appears to hit at Shakespeare, thus — 
He that will swear Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays 
yet, shall pass unexpected at here, as a man whose judgment 
shows it is constant, and stood still these five and twenty or 
thirty years." We are to remember, however, that there are 
some doubts about Andronicus being the work of Shakespeare 
in its entirety. The character of Aaron, the Moor, savors of 
Marlowe, or else Shakspeare began his career as dramatist 
where Marlow ended. 

In the same Induction he more decidedly traduces Shakes- 
peare, thus, "Instead of a little Davy .... the author doth 

promise a leer drunkard, two or three to attend him, 

etc. A wise justice of peace meditant, instead of a juggler, with 

an ape a sweet singer of new ballads allurant: and as 

fresh an hypocrit, as ever was broached, rampant. If there be 
never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it, he says, 
nor a nest of antiques? he is loth to make nature afraid in his 
plays, like those that beget tales, tempests, and such like droll- 
eries, to mix his head with other men's heels." Jonson admits 
here that he will cater to the taste of the age "but no person is 
to expect more than he knows, or better than a fair will afford." 
He will give them a ballad-singer similar to Autolycus in "The 
Winter's Tale." Instead of Stephauo with his servant-monster 
with "four legs and two voices" (Caliban) in "The Tempest" led 
about like an ape by his master, he has a wise justice of peace 
to offer. The wisdom of the justice, however, we fear would 
scarcely make amends for the excellent humor of Stephano, 
whose feelings regarding Caliban were such, that "If I can 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 35 

recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take too much for 
him: he shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly." 

In Volpone (act II, sc 1,) we find, "No, no, worthy gentle- 
man; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of 
these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pave- 
ments, as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come 
in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccacio, like state 
Tabarine, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, 
and their tedious captivity in the Turks gallies," etc. Undoubt- 
edly a fling at Shakespeare's Othello. The Induction to "The 
Staple of News" gives us "Cry you mercy, you never did wrong 
but with just cause." As mentioned before Jonson remarked that 
vShakespeare had said in the person of Caesar — "Caesar did never 
wrong but with just cause." In the play of "The Poetaster," which 
is supposed to have been leveled at Marston and Dekker we find 
in the person of Envy "How might I force this to the present 
state ? Are there no players here ? No poet apes ? That come 
with basilisk's eyes whose forked tbngaes are steeped in venom, 
as their hearts in gall? "Compare with Hamlet (1st player, act 
II, sc. 2,) who this had seen with tongue in venom steeped" — 
Jonson was not alone envious of Shakespeare and the other 
dramatists, even Inigo Jones who attended to the mechanical 
part of the Masques came in for a share of his spleen. 

In a very humorous "Expostulation" Jonson taxes him with 
overstepping his share of the work. 

— We all know 
The maker of the properties; in sum, 
The scene, the engine; but he now is come 
To be the music-master; tabler too; 
He is, or would be, the main Domiuus Do- 
All of the work, and so shall still for Ben, 
Be Inigo, the whistle, and his men. 



But wisest Inigo; who can reflect 
On the new priming of thy old sign-posts, 
Reviving with fresh colors the pale ghosts 
Of thy dead standards; or with marvel see 
Thy twice conceived, thrice paid for imagery: 



36 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

And not fall down before it and confess 
Almighty Architecture, who no less 
A goddess is, than painted cloth, deal board, 
Verrnillion, lake, or crimson can afford 
Expression for; with that unbounded line, 
Aimed at in thy omnipotent design ! 
The)- probably squabbled over their Masques, just as two 
children would at the present day over the possession of a toy. 
Ben Jonson in his rough way was candid, and did not expect 
those whom he had lampooned in lines that were able to ' 'eat 
into the bones and pierce the marrow" would take them serious- 
ly to heart. We find him surprised that one who had been the 
object of his ill humor should avoid his company. In an Epi- 
gram he says: 

to fine; grand. 

"What is't Fine Grand, makes thee my friendship fly, 

Or take an Epigram so fearfully, 

As 'twere a challenge, or a borrower's letter ?" 

As a lover Ben was rather heavy; he was aware of this, and 
therefore did not cultivate the lighter muse. He lets us know, 
however, that he frequented the very best society, and w y as on 
familiar terms with those at court. In "An Elegy" we learn — 

"Let me be what I am: as Virgil cold 
As Horace fat, or as Anacreon old ; 
No poet's verses yet did ever move, 
Whose readers did not think he was in love. 
Who shall forbid me then in rhyme to be 
As light, and active as the youngest he 
That from the Muses fountains doth endorse 
Her lines, and hourly sits the poet's horse ? 
Put on my ivy garland, lei me see 
Who frowns, who jealous is, who taxeth me. 
Fathers and husbands, I do claim a right 
In all that is called lovely; take my sight, 
Sooner than my affection for the fair. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 37 

No face, no hand, porportion, line or air 

Of beauty, but the muse hath interest in: 

There is not worn that lace, purl, knot, or pin, 

But is the poet's matter ; and he must, 

When he is furious, love, although not lust. 

Be then content, your daughters and your wives, 

If they be fair and worth it, have their lives 

Made longer by our praises; or if not, 

Wish you had foul ones, and deformed got, 

Curst in their cradles, or there chang'd by elves, 

So to be sure you do enjoy yourselves. 

Yet keep these up in sackcloth too, or leather, 

For silk will draw some sneaking songster thither. 

It is a rhyming age, and verses swarm 

At every stall; the city caps a charm. 

But I who live, and have lived twenty year, 

Where I may handle silk as free, and near, 

As any mercer, or the whale-bone man, 

That quilts those bodies I have leave to span; 

Have eaten with the beauties, and the wits, 

And braveries of the court, and felt their fits 

Of love and hate; and came so nigh to know 

Whether their faces were their own or no," etc. 

Ben Jonson was in some respects even more learned than 
Lord Bacon. He did not possess the same general knowledge, 
nor were his scientific attainments so great; but he unquestion- 
ably had read the ancient authors with more diligence. He was 
one of the literary giants of the period, and was of course perfect- 
ly familiar with 

"Cyphers strange that few could rightly read." — Spencer. 

In the dedication of his Epigrams — which include the trib- 
ute to Shakespeare in the 1623 edition — to William Earl of Pem- 
broke, Lord Chamberlain, etc., we find, — "My Lord: — while you 
cannot change your merit, I dare not change your title : it was 
that made it, and not I, under which name, I here offer to your 



38 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

lordship the ripest of rny studies, my Epigrams; which, though 
they carry danger in the sound, do not therefore seek your shelt- 
er; for when I made them, I had nothing in my conscience, to 
expressing of which I did need a cypher. But if I be fallen into 
those times, wherein, for the likeness of vice, and facts, every- 
one thinks another's ill deed objected to him; and that in their 
ignorant and guilty mouths, the common voice is, for their secur- 
ity, Beware the Poet ! confessing therein so much love to their 
diseases, as they would rather make a party, than be either rid, 
or told of them ; I must expect, at your Lordship's hand the 
protection of truth and liberty, while you are constant to your 
own goodness. In thanks whereof, I return you the honor of 
leading forth so many good and great names (as my verses men- 
tioned on the better part) to their rememberance with posterity. 
Amongst whom, if I praised unfortunately any one that doth 
not deseive; or, if all answers not in all numbers, the pictures I 
have made of them: I hope it will be forgiven me, that they are 
no ill pieces, though they be not like the persons." etc. 
In Jonson's "Execration upon Vulcan" we find: 

"Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul, 

The Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and all 

The learned library of Don Quixote, 

And so some goodlier monster had begot: 

Or spun out riddles, or weaved fifty tomes 

Of Logographs, or curious Palindromes, 

Or punrp'fl for those hard trifles, anagrams, 

Or Eteostics, or your finer flams 

Of eggs, and halberds, cradles, and a herse, 

A pair of scissors, and a comb in verse; 

Acrostichs, and telestichs ou jump names; 

Then thou hadst had some colour for thy flames." 

It will be seen by the above that the poets of those times 
were given to acrostics, anagrams, and to those finer flams of 
eggs, halberds, cradles, and a hearse; and they would also shape 
their verses so that if placed in a certain position in the form of 
a comb, a pair of scissars, etc., they would reveal to the reader 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 39 

something which the author did not care to make too obvious. 
Some of these have become with the lapse of time buried in 
oblivion. It would appear from the following that a work on 
ciphers had been published. In Ben Jonson's Epigrams "The 
New Cry," we find the following— 

'Ere cherries ripe ! and strawberries ! be gone; 
Unto the cries of London I'll add one. 
Ripe statesmen, ripe! they grow on every street; 
At six and twenty, ripe. You shall them meet. 



They carry in their pockets Tacitus, 

And the Gazetti, or Gallo-Belgicus; 

And talk reserved, lock'd up, and full of fear, 

Nay, ask you, how the day goes, in your ear; 

Keep a Star-Chamber sentence close twelve-days, 

And whisper what a Proclamation says. 

They meet in sixes, and at every mart, 

Are sure to con the catalogue by heart; 

Or every day, some one at Rimee's looks, 

Or Bill's, and there he buys the names of books. 

They all get Porta, for the sundry ways 

To write in cipher, and the several keys, 

To ope the character; they've found the sleight 

With juice of lemons, onions . . . , to write; 

To break up seals, and close them: and they know, 

If the states make (not) peace, how it will go 

With England. All forbidden books they get 

And of the powder-plot, they will talk yet — 

A poem like the above gives us more and a truer insight to 
the times and manners of the people than is usually obtained in 
several chapters of history. From the introductory to "Barthol- 
omew Fair," it would appear that plays were very carefully 
scrutinized by "state-decypherers" to see that there was no 
hidden meaning conveyed — nothing under the surface that 
would give offense insidiously. Thus we find — "In considera- 



40 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

tion of which, it is finally agreed, by the aforesaid hearers and 
spectators, 'That they neither in themselves conceal, nor suffer 
by them to be concealed, any state-decipherer, or politic pick- 
lock of the scene, so solemnly ridiculous, as to search out, who 
was meant by the ginger-bread woman, who by the hobby-horse 
man, who by the costard-monger, nay, who by their wares." 
In "Summer's L,ast Will and Testament" by Thos. Nash, he 
says : "Deep reaching wits, here is no deep stream for you to 
angle in." Moralizers, you that wrest a never-meant meaning 
out of everything, applying all things to the present time, keep 
your attention for the common stage; for here are no quips in 
characters for 3-ou to read. Vain glosers, gather what you will; 
spite spell backward what thou canst. 

Ver. Sol, sol; lit, re, mi, fa, sol ! 

Come to church while the bell doth toll. 

Troth I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical 
writers, that by the figures of beasts, plants, and of stones, 
express the mind as we do in A. B. C. or one that writes under, 
hair, as I have heard of a certain notary, Histiaeus, who follow- 
ing Darius in the Persian wars, and desirous to disclose some 
secrets of import to his friend Aristagoras, that dwelt afar off, 
found out this means. He had a servant that had been long 
sick of a pain in his eyes, whom, under pretence of curing his 
malady, he shaved from one side of his head to the other, and 
with a soft pencil wrote upon his scalp (as on parchment,) the 
discourse of his business; the fellow all the while imagining his 
master had done nothing but 'noint his head with a feather. 
After this he kept him secretly in his tent, till his hair was 
somewhat grown, and then willed him to go to Aristagoras into 
the country, and bid him shave him as he had done; and he 
should have perfect rcmcdic. He did so, Aristagoras shaved 
him with his own hands, read his friend's letter, and w T hen he 
had done, washed it out, that no man should perceive it else, 
and sent him home to buy him a night-cap." Thus we see how 
careful they had to be, to use the cipher alphabet quietly. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Lord Bacon. 

Lord Bacon in the "Advancement," (Book VI, Chap, i.) 
writes : 

"There are several kinds of cipher, as the simple (in which 
each letter corresponds to a different letter of the alphabet), those 
mixed with non-significants,* (that is joined to other letters and 
words, the juncture of which destroys the sense to an ordinary 
observer, which the first letters and words are intended to con- 
vey), those consisting of two kinds of characters, wheel ciphers, 
Key-ciphers, word-ciphers, etc. He then gives a cipher which he 
devised in Paris in his youth. We also wish to call the reader's 
attention to Lord Bacon's knowledge of music. 

Nat. Hist. Cent. II, 1[io3, etc.) : "The diapason or 8th in 
music is the sweetest concord; inasmuch as it is in effect an 
unison; as we see in lutes that are strung in the base strings 
with strings one an eighth above another ; which makes but as 
one sound. And every eighth note in ascent (as from 8 to 15, 
from 15 to 22, and so in infinitum,) are but scales in diapason 

It is to be noted, (the rather lest any man should 

think there is anything in the number 8, to create diapason,) 
that this computation of eight is a thing rather to be received 
than any true computation. For a true computation ought 
ever to be by distribution into equal portions," etc. The entire 
subject on music appears to be very skilfully handled. Our 
reason for inserting this will become apparent later on. 

Mrs. Henry Pott published a work called "The Promus 
of Formularies and elegancies by Francis Bacon and Elu- 
cidated by passages from Shakespeare." The Promus it 
appears is in the handwriting of Lord Bacon though not included 
in his works, and consists of a sort of memorandum of notes 



•Our cipher comes under this head. 



42 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

kept by him, in which he jotted down any quotation that 
pleased his fancy. Current proverbs, such drawn from the 
Spanish, Italian, French, English and the learned languages all 
were included in this Thesaurus to which he could refer when 
occasion required. This Promus (or store-keeper) has often 
been used by authors who wished to illustrate the parallelisms 
of expression existing between it and the works of Shakes- 
peare. Some of the parallelisms are quite striking, 
others are strangled into a relationship. Those who would 
have us believe that Bacon wrote the works, claiming 
that it would be impossible for Shakespeare to know as 
much about law, medicine, etc., as the works indicate the writer 
possessed, seem to forget that it would be quite as impossible for 
Bacon to depict such characters as are taken from the very dregs 
of society — a class which would not be congenial to the scholar- 
ly Bacon even in thought. 

One can imagine how extremely awkward Lord Bacon would 
appear trying to infuse life into a Falstaff, a Toby Belch, a Pistol, 
a Bottom, the numerous clowns and what not, that come and go 
like so many animated beings. However the Baconites have 
not been entirely on a false trail, and they would be right in say- 
ing that he wrote a very small part of the work attributed to 
Shakespeare, and we intend to locate part of that work we trust 
to the satisfaction of the general reader. 

Says Mrs. Pott "Amongst the notes, which have been classed 
as miscellaneous attention should be called to note 1196, where 
we read: "Law at Twickenham for ye merry tales !" 

At Twickenham Bacon spent many of his long vacations at 
the time when, as an almost briefless barrister, he retired there 
deeply in debt, and sometimes in disgrace with Queen Eliza- 
beth on account of the sympathy which he manifested for her 
dangerous and treacherous subject the Earl of Essex. Here, 
either at the beautiful river-side home of his half brother Edward, 
or in later years at his own house, it seems that he wrote a large 
number of the plays which were produced under the name and 
with the co-operation of Shakespeare. Here also there is little 
room for doubting that he wrote a large proportion of the 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 43 

sonnets, which appear to reflect so clearly the varied shades of 
the mind ; when in happier honrs he received the Queen com- 
ing in her barge to visit him, and addressed to her those hyper- 
complimentary lines which were the fashion of the day, and 
which flattered her, and helped perhaps to keep her in an amia- 
ble hnmor; for Bacon says, "She was very willing to be courted, 
wooed and to have sonnets made in her commendation. 
At other times when suffering under the royal displeasure 
Bacon tells us that, since he could no longer endure the sun he 
had fled into the shade at Twickenham, where he said that he 
once again enjoyed the blessings of contemplation in that sweet 
solitariness which collected the mind, as shutting the eyes doth 
the si-ht ' The authoress continues: "It is to this period that 
the writing of many of the earlier plays should be assignee! 
There are times noted by Mr. Spedding where Bacon wrote with 
closed doors, and when the subject of his studies is doubtful; 
and there is one long vacation of which the careful biographer 
remarks that he cannot tell what work the indefatigable student 
produced during those months, for that he knows of none whose 
date corresponds with the period. In a letter to Sir Toby 
Matthew, whom he calls his kind inquisitor fulfilled for many 
years the office of reader and critic to Bacon, who used to for- 
ward to him from time to time portions of his works, and whose 
letters acknowledging Sir Toby's criticisms are extant." 

Following is a letter from Bacon to Sir Toby-"I have sent 
you some copies of my book of the Advancement, which you 
desired- and a little work of my recreation, which you desired not. 
My Installation I reserve for conference; it sleeps not. Those 
works of the Alphabet are in my opinion of less use to you where 
you are now, than at Paris ; and therefore I conceived that you 
sent me a kind of tacit countermand of your former request But 
in regard that some friends of yours have still insisted here, I send 
them to you; and for my part, I value your own reading more 
than your publishing them to others. Thus in extreme haste, 

etc. 

Mr. Spedding comments on the above letter as fol- 



44 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

lows: "What those] works of the Alphabet may have 
been I cannot guess, unless they related to Bacon's cypher, in 
which by means of two alphabets, one having only two letters, 
the other having two forms for each of the twenty-four letters, 
any word you please may be written so as to signify any other 
words," etc. Mr. Spedding continues: "In the Promus note it 
really seems that the clue is found to Bacon's password between 
himself and his friend. The Alphabet meant the 'Tragedies 
and Comedies," those other works, those w T orks of his recre- 
ation' which Sir Toby Matthew had in his mind when he 
added to a business letter this mysterious postscript: "P. S. 
The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation and 
of this side of the sea, is of your lordship's name, though he 
known by another.'''' 

In the Promus (No. 546) Bacon had noted "Princes have a 
cypher," and he had also stated in his "Advancement" that 
they are commonly in letters but may be in words; and also, 
"Now as much as decency permits, I here discover my inclina- 
tion and affections. If any observe, he will find that I have 
either told or designed to tell All. What I cannot express I 
point out with my finger. Bearing this in mind our attention 
was called to the following peculiar dialogue in act III, sc. 1, of 
"The Taming of the Shrew," where two men are engaged in 
courting a young lady on the sly, one disguised as a pedant, the 
other as a musician. 

Bia?ica. Where left we last? 

Lucentio. Here, madame: — 

Hac ibat Simois ; hie est Sigeia tellus ; 
Hie steterat Priami regia celsa senis. 

Bian. Construe them. 

Luc. Hac ibat, as I told you before, — Simois, I am Lucen- 
tio, — hie est, son unto Vincentio of Pisa, Sigeia tellus, 
disguised thus to get y our love ; Hie steterat, and that 
Ivucentio that comes a wooing, — Priami, is my man 
Tranio, regia, bearing my port, — celsa senis, that we 
might beguile the old pantaloon. 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 45 

Hor. (Returning) Madam, my instrument's in tune. 
Hi an. Let's hear. — 

fie ! the treble jars. 

Luc. Spit in the hole man, and tune again. 

Bian. Now let me see if I can construe it. Hac ibat Simois, 

1 know you not ; — hie est Sigeia tellus, I trust you not ; — 
Hie steterat Priami, take heed ye hear us not: — regia, pre- 
sume not ; — celsa sen is, despair not. 

Hor. Madam, 'tis now in tune. 

Luc. All but the base. 

Hor. The base is right; 'tis the base knave that jars. 
How fiery and forward our pedant is ! 
Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love : 
Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet. [Aside.] 

Bian. In time I may believe, yet I mistrust. 

Luc. Mistrust it not ; for, sure, Aecides 

Was Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather. 
Bian. I must believe my master ; else, I promise you, 

I should be arguing still upon that doubt : 

But let it rest. — Now, Licio, to you. — 

Good masters, take it not unkindly, pray, 

That I have been thus pleasant with you both. 

Hor. [To Ivticentio] : You may go walk, and give me leave 
awhile : 

My lessons make no music in three parts. 
Luc. Are you so formal, sir? [Aside] Well, I must wait, 

And watch withal ; for, but I be deceived, 

Our fine musician groweth amorous. 
Hor. Madam, before you touch the instrument, 

To learn the order of my fingering, 

I must begin with rudiments of art ; 

To teach you gamut in a briefer sort, 

More pleasant, pithy, and effectual, 

Than hath been taught by any of my trade : 

And there it is in writing fairly drawn. 



46 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

Bian. Why, I am past my gamut long ago. 
Hor. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio. 
Bian. [Reads] Gamouth I am, the ground of all accord, 
Are^ to plead Hortensio's passion: 
Bee))ie, Bianco, take him for thy Lord 
(Copied from the 1623 Cfaut, that loves with all affection: 

edition) De sol re, one Cliffe, two notes have I, 

Elami show pity or I die. 

The tenor of the dialogue above would indicate that here 
would be an excellent opportunity to introduce a cipher. With- 
out further comment let us glance over the history of this play, 
and see what reason there is to doubt the authenticity of its 
being one of Shakespeare's plays. There will be little trouble 
to prove that it is not his in its entirety. And strangely enough 
Shakesperian scholars have discarded that part as spurious in 
which our cipher occurs. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The History of the Play "Taming of the Shrew." 

The author of this will say that he never had occasion to 
investigate, and did not know on how slender a thread Shakes- 
peare's claim fo the authorship of this play in its entirety hung 
until after the discovery of the cipher. In looking over his own 
volume, "The complete Works of William Shakespeare, with 
a full and comprehensive Life, etc. Edited by George Lord Duyc- 
kinck, he found the following history of the play, substantiated 
in every particular by other Shakesperian scholars. 

TAMING OF THE SHREW. 

["The Taming of The Shrew" was first printed in the folio 
of 1623, where it occupies twenty-two pages, viz. : from p. 208 to 
page 229, inclusive, in the division of "Comedies." It was 
reprinted in the three later folios.] Shakespeare was indebted 
for nearly the whole of his "Taming of the Shrew," to an older 
play, published in 1594, under the title of "The Taming of a 
Shrew." The mere circumstance of the adoption of the title 
substituting only the definite for the indefinite article, proves 
that he had not the slightest intention of concealing his obliga- 
tion. 

When Steevens published the "Six Old Plays," more or less 
employed by Shakespeare in six of his own dramas, no earlier 
edition of the "Taming of A Shrew" than that of 1607 was 
known. It was conjectured, however, that it had come from 
the press at an earlier date, and Pope appeared to have been 
once in possession of a copy of it, published as early as 1594. 
This copy has since been recovered, and is now in the collection 
of the Duke of Devonshire : the exact title of it is as follows : — 

"A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called "The Taming of a 



48 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

Shrew." As it was sundry times acted by the Right Hon- 
orable the Earle of Pembrook his servants. Printed at Lon- 
don by Peter Short and are to be sold by Cuthbert Burbie, at 
his shop at the Royal Exchange, 1594," 4 to. 

It was reprinted in 1596, and a copy of that edition is in the 
possession of Lord Francis Egerton. The impression of 1607, 
the copy used by Steeven's, is in the collection of the Duke of 
Devonshire. There are three entries in the Registers of the 
Stationers' Company relating to "The Taming of a Shrew" but 
not one refering to Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." 
When Blounte and Jaggard, on the 8th Nov. 1623, entered "Mr. 
William Shakespeere's Comedyes, Histories, and Tragedyes, 
soe many of the said copies as are not formerly entered to other 
men," they did not include "The Taming of the Shrew:" hence 
an inference might be drawn, that at some previous time it had 
been 'entered to other men'; but no such entry has been found, 
and Shakespeare's comedy, probably, was never printed until it 
was inserted in the folio of 1623. 

On the question, when it was originally composed, opinions, 
including my own, have varied considerably ; but I now think 
we can arrive at a tolerably satisfactory decision. Malone first 
believed that the "Taming of the Shrew" was written in 1606, 
and subsequently gave 1596 as its probable date. It appears to 
me that nobody has sufficiently attended to the apparently un- 
important fact that in "Hamlet" Shakespeare mistakenly intro- 
duces the name of Baptista as that of a woman, while in "The 
Taming of the Shrew" he had detected his own error. The 
great probability is, that "Hamlet" was written at the earliest 
in 1601, and "The Taming of the Shrew," perhaps came from 
the pen of the author not very long afterwards. 

The recent reprint of "The Pleasant Comedy of Patient 
Grissill," by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton, from the edition 
of 1603, tends to throw light on this point. Henslowe's Diary 
establishes, that the dramatists above named were writing it in 
the winter of 1599. It contains various allusions to the taming 
of shrews ; and it is to be recollected that the old "Taming of a 
Shrew" was acted by Henslowe's company, and is mentioned by 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 49 

him under the date of nth June, 1594. One of the passages in 
"Patient Grissill," which seems to connect the two, occurs in 
Act. V., sc. 2, where Sir Owen producing his wands, says to the 
Marquess, 'I will learn your medicines to tame shrews.' This 
expression is remarkable, because we find by Henslowe's Diary 
that, in July, 1602, Dekker received a payment from the old 
manager, on account of a comedy he was writing under the title 
of 'A medicine for a curst Wife.' My conjecture is, that 
Shakespeare, {in coalition possibly, with some other dramatist, 
zuho wrote the portions which are admitted not to be in Shakes- 
peare's manner) — produced his Taming of the Shrew' shortly 
after 'Patient Grissill' had been brought upon the stage, and 
as a sort of counterpart to it ; and that Dekker followed up the 
subject in the summer of 1602 by his 'Medicine for a curst Wife,' 
having been incited by the success of Shakespeare's 'Taming of 
the Shrew' at a rival theatre. At this time the old 'Taming of 
a Shrew' had been laid by as a public performance, and Shakes- 
peare having very nearly adopted its title, Dekker took a differ- 
ent one, in accordance with the expression he had used two or 
three years before in 'Patient Grissill,' " etc. 

Another author Rev. Henry Stokes (The Harness Essay, 
1877), in his work "An Attempt to Determine the Chronological 
Order of Shakespeare's Plays," states, "This play must of 
course be considered in connection with the play entitled 
The Taming of A Shrew; and it may at once be stated 
that few persons will be found (especially after Mr. Fleay's 
paper in the New Shakespere Society's Transactions, Vol. 1) to 
think that Shakespeare wrote the whole of the comedy as it 
appeared in the folio edition, and fewer still to attribute to him 
as Pope did, the whole of the quarto edition ; while we cannot 
for a moment suppose that any will support the view, which the 
late Mr. Hickson advanced that the 'Taming of the Shrew' was 
written after, and in imitation of Shakespeare's play." After a 
very plausible argument Mr. Stokes concludes that the old play 
of A Shrew was as far back as 1594 believed to be Shakespeare's 
in some sense. This author states that "Farmer, nearly a 
hundred years ago said that Shakespeare wrote only the 



50 THB CIPHER FOUND. 

Petruchio scenes in the 'Taming of the Shrew.' Mr. Collier 
hesitatingly adopted this view. Mr. Grant White developed it, 
and I and Mr. Fleay turned it into figures," etc. Hazlett says: 
"This is almost the only one of Shakespeare's comedies which 
has a regular plot and downright moral ; and Mr. Fleay would 
rather omit the 'almost. ' and add that no work of Shakespeare's 
is so narrow in feeling, so restricted in purpose, so unpleasing in 
general tone. 'It has been thought our play must be subse- 
quent to Hamlet, because the name Baptista, is here correctly 
applied to a man." This is a point which the reader will please 
bear in mind : the person or persons that named Baptista the 
father of Katherine, were aware of the fact that it was the Chris- 
tian name of a male. Shakespeare, it would seem, labored 
under a wrong impression, for Hamlet is made to say incorrectly 
during the play scene "his wife Baptista." 

Prof. Dowden, "Shakespere his Mind and Art," observes: — 
Shakespeare abounds in kindly mirth ; he receives an exquisite 
pleasure from the alert wit and bright sense of a Rosalind ; he 
can dandle a fool as tenderly as any nurse qualified to take a 
baby from the birth can deal with her charge. But Shakespeare 
is not pledged to deep-dyed, ultra amiability. With Jaques he 
can rail at the world, while remaining curiously aloof from all 
deep concern about its interests this way or that. With Timon 
he can turn upon the world with a rage no less than that of 
Swift, and discover in man and woman a creature as abominable 
as the Yahoo. In other words the humor of Shakspere, like 
his total genius is dramatic. Then again although Shakspere 
laughs incomparably, mere laughter wearies him . . . With 
beauty or with pathos or with thought, Shakspere can mingle 
his mirth, and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with 
play of wit or humorous characterization; but an entirely comic 
subject somewhat disconcerts the poet. On this ground, if no 
other were forth-coming, it might be suspected that The Taming 
of the Shrew was not altogether the work of Shakspere's 
hand. The secondary intrigues and minor incidents were of 
little interest to the poet. But in the buoyant force of Petruch- 
io's character, in his subduing tempest of high spirits, and in the 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 51 

person of the foiled revoltress against the law of sex, who car- 
ries into her wifely the same energy which she had shown in 
her virgin sauvagerie, there were elements of human character 
in which the imagination of the poet took delight." 

It has been observed in an eddition by Messrs. Clark and 
Wright, that in " The Taming of the Shrew" three parts maybe 
distinguished: (1) The humorous Induction, in which Sly, the 
drunken tinker, is the chief person ; (2) A comedy of character, 
the Shrew and her tamer, Petruchio, being the hero and heroine; 
(3) A comedy of intrigue — the story of Bianca and her rival 

lovers Turning this statement into figures we find 

that Shakespeare's part in The Taming of the Shrew, is com- 
prised in the following portions: Induction ; act II, sc. 1, L. 
169-326 ; act III, sc. 2, L, 1-125, and 151-241; act IV, sc. 1, 2, and 
3; act V, sc. II, L. 1-180. Messrs. Clark an I Wright, who ack- 
nowledge an indebtedness to others in making the statements 
presented above, add "Such a division, it must be borne in mind, 
is no more than a conjecture, but it seems to be suggested and 
fairly indicated by the style of the several parts of the comedy. ' ' 
They point out that Shakespeare's hand is least apparent in the 
intrigue-comedy of Bianca with her disguised lovers of which the 
old play does not treat. They add: "It may be said Shakes- 
peare's genius goes in and out with the person of Katherine." 
In the "Taming of the Shrew the scene is laid at Padua ; in the 
other play it is Athens. Baptista was Alfonso in the old play; 
Kate, Bianca and the Widow were Kate, Emelia and Phylena; 
Petruchio was Ferando ; Grumio, Saunders. The old play has 
been ascribed to Marlowe, also to Dekker, Kyd and others. To 
illustrate how much Shakespeare has improved this play we 
will give a short quotation from the 1594 edition of the old 
"Taming of a Shrew," corresponding to a part of act IV. sc. 1, 

of The Shrew. 

Enter Terando and Kate^ 

"Feran. Now welcome Kate : Where's these villians 
Here, what ? not supper yet upon the borde : 
Nor table spread nor nothing done at all, 
Where's that villaine that I sent before. 



52 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

San. Now, ad sum, sir. 

Feran. Come hether you villaine I'le cut your nose, 
You Rogue : helpe me off with my bootes: wilt please 
You to lay the cloth ? sounes the villaine 
Hurts my foote? pull easely I say; yet againe 

{He beats them all. 
They cover the bord and fetch in the meate.) 
Sounes? burnt and skorcht who drest this meate." 

During the reign of Elizabeth there was a play performed 
called "The Disobedient Child" written by Thos. Ingelend 
some time in the middle of the 16th century. At the close of 
this play the actors kneel and pray for Queen Elizabeth. It 
bears many striking resemblances to the "Shrew" plays, and 
besides mentions Bacon's borough of St. Albans. The "heroine" 
is a virago who subdues her husband instead of being subdued 
as the later shrews were. In this play, or more properly speak- 
ing interlude, one of the characters "Man-Cook," says : 

"As for this woman, which he shall marry, 
At Saint Albans always hath spent her life ; 
I think she be a shrew, I tell thee plainly, 
And full of debate, malice, and strife. ' ' 

. let III, sc.2. I)i ''The Taming of the Shrew" we have, "Nay, 
by St. Jamy, I hold you a penny." — In "The Disobedient 
Child." Nay by the mass, I hold ye a groat — 

Act IV, sc. 3, In "The Shrew," "What, sweeting, all amort." 

In " The Dis. Child.'" "Where is my sweeting whom I do seek." 

Act I, sc. 2, In "The Shrew" "As old as Sybil, and as curst and 

shrewd. ' ' 
"As Socrates' Xantippe, or even 
worse." 

In "The Dis Child," "Thou mayst learn what grief, sorrow and 

moan 
Socrates had with Xantippe his wife." 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 5 3 

Many parallelisms of thought and expression occur. One of 
the most striking in "The Dis. Child," perhaps is— 

"Who then merry marriage can discommend, 
And will not with Aristotle in his Ethics agree." 

A number of Lord Bacon's admirers have laid hands on the 
following passage in "The Shrew," and claimed it as his off- 
spring. It undoubtedly belongs to him. 

"Tranio. Mi Perdonate, gentle master mine, 
I am in all affected as yourself, 
Glad that you thus continue your resolve, 
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy ; 
Only, good master, while we do admire 
This virtue, and this moral discipline, 
Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray ; 
Or so devote to Aristotle's Ethics, 
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured. 
Talk logic with acquaintance that you have, 
And practice rhetoric in common talk : 
Music and poesy used to quicken you: 
' The mathematics, and the metaphysics, 
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you. 

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en : 

In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 

We do not wish to weary the reader by illustrating the par- 
allelisms, existing between the "Promus" and "The Shrew." 
The minute discription by Gremio (act. if,) of his household 
goods has been quite a puzzle to Shakesperians, so much so 
that they were forced to believe he had been at one time in Italy. 
This play we think savors more of the lawyer than any of the 
others. 

Please, ye we may contrive this afternoon, 
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health : 
And do as adversaries do in law, 
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends," 



54 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

The differances between Shakespeare's writings and those 
of other dramatists seems to be that every word has life and 
action in it — A Promethean spark infused by the master. For 
instance what a vigor is in the following lines shouted by Falstaff 
at the Gadshill robbery. 

"Hang ye, gorbellied knaves. Are ye undone? No, ye 
fat chuffs ; I would your store were here. On, bacons, on ! 
What ! ye knaves, young men must live. You are grand-jurors, 
are ye ? We'll jure ye, i 'faith." 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Cipher and its Proof. 

In one of the preceding chapters attention was called to a 
musical gamut introduced in such a very peculiar manner, that 
the author of this was inclined to believe it might contain a 
cipher. It was therefore very closely scanned, and the six 
verses of which it is composed was found to contain fifty-four 
poetic or metrical syllables. The descriptive title of gamut was 
rejected, being in a different metre than the rest of the verse. 
The word 'gamut' "takes its name from the Greek letter 
'gamma' with 'ut' for its lowest key note" — {Ency. Brit.). It 
would appear that in Lord Bacon's time the gamut consisted of 
six tones instead of seven as at present, the si being afterwards 
added. Inasmuch as our knowledge of the technicalities of music 
is limited, we shall have to demonstrate our argument on 
mathematical principles, and pick out the notes which musicians 
will no doubt verify as being in accord. 

Now let us write down this gamut and number the syllables, 

thus — 

GAMUT. 

123 4 5678 

I am the ground of all ac cord 

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 

A re to plead Hor ten sio's pash on 

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 
B me Bi an ca take him for thy Lord 

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 

C faut that pleads with all a fecksh on 

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 

D sol re one cliffe two notes have I 

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 
EC la mi show pi ty or i die 

We have here a most extraordinary revelation, which we 
will proceed to explain. 



56 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

Before doing so, however, let us call the reader's attention 
to the fact, that in the year 162 1 the head master of St. Paul's 
School, London, published a work called "Alexander Gill's 
Phonetic Writing, with an examination of Spencer's and 
Sydney's Rhymes. " The spelling at the time was very irregular, 
and scholars were aware that great improvements would prob- 
ably be made. Lord Bacon fearing that his works might be- 
come as unintelligible to later ages as those of Chaucer were 
in his, had his works translated into the Latin tongue. There- 
fore the reader must remember that we are dealing as much with 
sounds as with letters. Lord Bacon says: "This variable 
and subtile composition, and fabric of the human body, makes 
it like a kind of curious musical instrument, easily disordered ; 
and, therefore, the poets justly joined music and medicine in 
Apollo ; because the office of medicine is to tune the curious 
organ of the human body, and reduce it to harmony." We 
propose to show how music will be made to remedy another 
kind of error or inharmony. 

Nine, as a basic number, is too well known to require any 
particular comment. It is the key of the numbers. Its mys- 
teries, or peculiarities, were well known to the Cabalists. We 
find it the basic number of the Shekinah — " that, miraculous 
light or visible glory which was a symbol of the divine pres- 
ence." There are also nine muses and nine letters to the words 
Lord Bacon. 

In counting over the syllables of the gamut, we find the 9th 
is A; the 18th, B; the 36th, on or ion — forming quite clearly 
the word Bacon. By adding the intervening 27th syllable, 
"Lord," we have "Lord Bacon." We find also in the above 
gamut that the first syllable of the 3d line is "B," the last 
syllable of the same line "Lord" (with a capital "L" in the 
1623d ed.); the first syllable of the 2d line is "A," the last 
syllable of the same line "on" ; the first syllable of the 4th line 
is "C," the last syllable "on.." Now if these syllables were 
joined together the intervening ones being obliterated we should 
have also a very nicely balanced "Lord Bacon." Discarding 
these three lines for the present, we find that the letters begin- 



THE CIPHER FOUND. 57 

ning and ending the remaining lines form in several different 
ways acrostics of the word "die," which is also the last word 
of the gamut. Our attention seems to be called particularly to 
this fact. 

Let us therefore to make the matter as short and explicit as 
possible for the reader arrange the syllables into nines, ascending 
and descending with our gamut thus — 

GAMUT. 

123 4 56789 

I am the ground of all ac cord A 

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 

Re to plead Hor ten sio's pash on B 

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 

Me Bi an ca take him for thy Lord 

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 

C faut that pleads with all af fecksh on 

37 3 8 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 

D sol re one clef two notes have I 

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 

E la mi show pi ty or I die 

GAMUT REVERSED. 

1. 2345 6 789 

Die I or ty pi show me la E 

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 iS 

I have notes two clef one re sol D 

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 

on fecksh af all with pleads that faut C 

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 

Lord thy for him take ca on B me 

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 

B on pash sio's ten Hor plead to Re 

46 47 48 49 5o 51 52 53 54 

A cord ac all of ground the am I 

Now let us group these syllables into nines, and await the 
result. In the first place let us take the 9th syllable of the 



58 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

gamut, and the syllable next to it answering to the 45th syllable 
in the reversed gamut ; then let us take the 18th syllable of the 
gamut, and the syllable next to it, answering to the 36th syllable 
of the reversed gamut ; then let us take the 27th syllable of the 
gamut, and the S}dlable next it, answering also to the 27th sylla- 
ble of the reversed gamut, and continue so far as the gamut will 
permit. This will give us the following group of syllables num- 
bered in their respective order, thus : 



9 




45 


A 




Re 


18 




36 


B 


27 

Lord 

C 


me 


36 


27 


18 


on 




D 


45 




9 


I 




E 



I 

7 -c" 

36 27 18 

nn 3 

4 



This gives us a regular, clear, and consistent cipher through- 
out, and thus we have the words "Lord Bacon, remedie." The 
word remedie was so spelled at the time, and signifies according 
to Webster, ' 'That which counteracts an evil of any kind ; a 
corrective ; reparation ; cure and the like." In other words this 
is the way we cure Bacon. We trust the reader will scrutinize 
the cipher carefully to see how perfect it is in every respect. 

Now lest there may be some who will still doubt, we beg 
to call their attention to the word Bianca, which begins with the 
third syllable of the third line in the original gamut, and has 
three syllables. This word is simply a metathesis of the word 
Bacon. By placing the third syllable in the middle we have B 
ca on. "Bi" is the 20th syllable, "on" is the 21st syllable, "ca" 
is the 22d syllable. By adding 20 — 21 — 22 wehave 63, a sum divis- 
ible by nine, which proves that it is also in accord with the rest. 

There is a class of readers whose right it is to know the 
whole truth however unpleasant, for such as these this work wa 



THE CIPHER EOUND. 59 

written ; and ' 'truth can never be confirmed enough. ' ' By apply- 
ing the cipher to Ben Jonson's lines under the portrait of Shakes- 
peare in the 1623 edition it will be further substantiated. 
Mr. William Henry Smith in his work "Bacon and Shakespeare" 
referring to these lines says : "The lines are in many parts in- 
comprehensible, and throughout exhibit a mysterious vagueness 
quite at variance with the general character of Ben Jonson's 
laudatory verses." It will be observed that the 9th metrical 
syllable of these "laudatory" verses is the 1st syllable of the 2d 
line ; the 18th syllable is the 2d syllable of the 3d line ; the 27th 
syllable is the 3d syllable of the 4th line, and so on till 8 
syllables are reached. This 8th syllable is also the 9th syllable, 
counting from below upwards. The result is "Look in then 
.... ure in it. This was either meant as a piece of 
pleasantry on the part of Jonson, or else it was intended by a 
trifling transposition to show that he held the works in the 
utmost contempt, and played the part of what was then known 
as a "back-friend" to Shakespeare. Why should Jonson use 
the mysterious expression (to which we have already called the 
reader's attention) in dedicating the Epigrams to Pembroke — 
"or if all answers not in all numbers, the pictures I have made 
of them, I hope it will be forgiven me," etc., unless he was 
guilty of some crooked work ? 

One of the characters in "The return from Parnassus," 
shouts : "Base slave I'll hang thee on a crossed rhyme," and 
the reader will remember Jonson's "Execration upon Vulcan," 
where he says : 

' 'Or pumped for those hard trifles, anagrams, 

Or Eteostics, or your finer flams 

Of Eggs, and halberds, cradles, and a hearse, 

A pair of scissars," etc. 
We have already shown the reader one section of a cross, 
or blade of a scissars, which runs transversely through the poem 
from left to right. Now by grouping these syllables into nines 
(which will also show our cipher to the best advantage,) you 
will find by reading transversely through the poem from right 
to left, "It were with ass, his all but not," which will not differ 



60 THE CIPHER FOUND. 

materially from the first syllables of each line in their original 
position. We could point out other groups of syllables in this 
"tribute" which would strengthen the position we have taken 
with regard to Jonson's intent in writing this poem. However 
we think we have shown enough to convince everyone the im- 
possibility of this all being an accident. Let us therefore close 
by saying with Virgil, 

Ne dubita, nam vera vides. 



The Cipher Found 



LORD BACON'S WORK LOCATED IN 
ONE OF THE PLAYS. 



THE CIPHER PROVED FROM ANOTHER 
STANDPOINT. 



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